About Divergent
Divergent is about a dystopian society where, at the age of 16, each teenager is forced to undergo a serum-induced psychological aptitude test. The results then dictate which of 5 factions they will then be a part of. The film follows Beatrice Prior, born into the Abnegation faction, who along with others rebel against the system they’re born into.
After I recent rewatch I started to think “what other movies like Divergent are worth watching?” Here’s my compiled list for your next science fiction marathon.
1. The Fifth Wave (2016)
In The Fifth Wave, teenage survivor Cassie Sullivan watches civilisation get dismantled in stages by an alien invasion that hits Earth like a cosmic cruelty marathon: EMP blackout, natural disasters, a plague, and finally infiltration – where aliens hide inside human bodies. With her little brother taken to a military camp and trust now a luxury item, Cassie treks through the wreckage armed with a rifle and sheer stubbornness, only to uncover that the “soldiers” training kids to fight the invaders are the invaders. As Cassie teams up with a suspiciously perfect farm boy and races to rescue her brother, the lines between human and enemy blur into a paranoia buffet. It’s teen dystopia with alien mind games, moral landmines, and humanity hanging by its last frayed thread.
2. Voyagers (2021)
In Voyagers, a group of genetically engineered teens is sent on a multi-generational mission to colonise a distant planet, raised in isolation and drugged with a “blue” chemical that keeps their emotions – and hormones – on mute. When two crew members stop taking the suppressant, the ship turns into a pressure cooker of paranoia, desire, and primal chaos as they realise the calm, obedient life they were promised is just manufactured control. With authority collapsing and a self-appointed tyrant whipping the others into fear-fueled hysteria, the mission spirals into a Lord-of-the-Flies-in-space meltdown. As violence erupts and the teens confront the truth about their engineered purpose, survival becomes less about reaching the new world and more about reclaiming their humanity before the ship becomes their floating tomb.
3. Ready Player One (2018)
In Ready Player One, Wade Watts escapes his bleak, overcrowded future by diving into the OASIS – a sprawling VR playground where pop-culture magic rules and real-world misery gets muted behind an avatar. When its late creator launches a Willy Wonka–style contest promising total control of the OASIS to whoever can crack three nostalgia-soaked challenges, Wade becomes an instant target for IOI, a megacorp that wants to monetize the virtual universe into a digital prison. Racing through movie riffs, boss fights, and loyalty tests with his misfit crew, Wade uncovers clues, confronts his own fears, and pushes back against corporate tyranny. By the final showdown, it’s gamer solidarity vs. capitalist greed in a neon treasure hunt for the soul of the virtual world.
4. The Hunger Games (2012)
In The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen becomes the accidental face of defiance when she volunteers to take her sister’s place in a televised death match where the Capitol forces kids from each district to fight to the last breath for entertainment and control. Thrust into the arena with hunting skills, trust issues, and a camera-ready love angle with fellow tribute Peeta, Katniss navigates traps, alliances, and the Capitol’s twisted pageantry while refusing to play by their script. Her final act – choosing solidarity over slaughter – doesn’t just break the game’s rules; it lights a fuse under the Capitol’s iron grip. It’s survival horror dressed up as reality TV, where rebellion starts with one girl saying “no” in front of the whole world.
5. Insurgent (2015)
In Insurgent, Tris and Four are on the run after blowing the lid off Chicago’s faction system, only to find themselves hunted by Jeanine – the Erudite tyrant obsessed with capturing Tris because her “Divergent” genes can unlock a mysterious, ancient box that supposedly holds the city’s true purpose. As the factions fracture and alliances implode, Tris grapples with grief, guilt, and a brutal series of simulation tests designed to break her spirit and crack the box open. When the message inside reveals that their walled-in society was actually an experiment meant to be reconnected with the outside world, Tris exposes the truth and shatters Jeanine’s regime. It’s rebellion, identity, and dystopian chaos wrapped in a slick, simulation-soaked mind game.
6. The Host (2013)
In The Host, Earth has been quietly conquered by parasitic alien “Souls” who slide into human bodies and steer them like rental cars, leaving most of humanity erased. When rebel Melanie Stryder is captured and implanted with a Soul called Wanderer, she refuses to vacate the mental driver’s seat, forcing the two to share one body in a psychic tug-of-war. As Melanie bombards Wanderer with memories of the people she loves, the unlikely duo escapes to a hidden human colony, where Wanderer becomes tangled in Melanie’s old relationships and the rebels debate whether she’s a threat or an unexpected ally. With hunters closing in and identities bleeding together, Melanie and Wanderer must choose whether coexistence is a glitch – or the start of humanity’s weirdest second chance.
7. Oblivion (2013)
In Oblivion, drone tech Jack Harper tends to the ruins of post-apocalyptic Earth, believing he’s helping prep the planet’s final resources for humanity’s new life on Titan – until a crashed ship, a mysterious woman from his dreams, and a tribe of surviving humans crack his tidy reality wide open. Jack discovers he’s actually a clone working for an alien AI that wiped out most of humanity and has been using him – and hundreds of copies of him – to maintain its grip on Earth. As truth steamrolls over his manufactured memories, Jack teams up with the resistance to take down the orbiting nightmare that created him. It’s a sleek, melancholic sci-fi mind-warp where identity glitches, loyalty fractures, and heroism comes from breaking the code you were built to obey.
8. Allegiant (2016)
In Allegiant, Tris and Four bust out of Chicago’s crumbling faction system only to discover an even bigger dystopian puppet show waiting outside the wall, run by the Bureau of Genetic Welfare – a sleek, lab-coated cult convinced they can “fix” humanity by sorting people like faulty software. As Tris becomes the Bureau’s shiny new poster child for genetic perfection, Four sees through the utopian gloss and realizes they’re just another experiment in a long line of manipulated societies. With Chicago spiralling into civil war and the Bureau plotting a memory-wipe to reset the whole mess, Tris and her crew fight to expose the truth before everyone’s identities get hard-rebooted. It’s the classic “escape the nightmare only to find a bigger nightmare” upgrade – dystopia edition.
9. Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
In Alita: Battle Angel, cybernetics whiz Dr. Ido pulls a shattered cyborg girl out of the scrapyard and rebuilds her into Alita – an amnesiac powerhouse with a warrior’s instincts hiding under her wide-eyed curiosity. As she explores Iron City’s neon-grimed streets, Alita discovers she was once a berserker soldier built for annihilation, which puts her on a collision course with assassins, corrupt overlords, and the sky-city elites pulling strings from afar. Between Motorball carnage, limb-shredding cyborg brawls, and a doomed love story that hits harder than any metal fist, Alita embraces her identity and pushes back against the system that wants to control her. It’s a scrapyard Cinderella story… if Cinderella could punch through buildings.
10. In Time (2011)
In In Time, humanity runs on a literal life-clock embedded in their arms, where the rich can live forever and everyone else scrambles for minutes like they’re loose change on death’s doorstep. Factory worker Will Salas gets gifted over a century of time by a stranger tired of immortality, instantly painting a target on his back as the Timekeepers – basically cops for the 1,000-year-olds – accuse him of murder. When he teams up with runaway heiress Sylvia Weis, the two go full Bonnie-and-Clyde against a world where capitalism is just vampirism with better branding, hijacking time banks and exposing the system that keeps the poor dying on schedule. It’s a slick, high-concept chase flick where every second is both currency and countdown.
What do you think of these movies?
Did you think any of these movies are like Divergent?
Let us know in the comments.
